Counting the economic cost of anti-LGBTQ laws

Studies suggest countries that are more inclusive of LGBTQ people have stronger economies and more productive workers. 

While on a trip to the United States in 2018, Rikki Nathanson learned secret police were looking for her at her home and office in Zimbabwe. It was then the prominent transgender activist knew she couldn’t go back. More than four years earlier Nathanson was arrested by Zimbabwean police at gunpoint for using a women’s bathroom. She was forced to remove all her clothing to “verify her gender”, thrown in jail and repeatedly beaten, she told Al Jazeera. But when a magistrate judge asked the prosecutor how Nathanson had created a “public nuisance” –  the charge she faced – the case was dismissed. “The arrest and the events after it were extremely traumatic, degrading and humiliating,” Nathanson said.